Thursday, January 6, 2011

As posted by Dr. Mahathir Mohamad at Che Det on January 5, 2011 3:15 PM

1. It's not too late I hope, for me to congratulate the Malaysian football team for winning the AFF Suzuki Cup.

2. Although I am not much of a football fan, I do follow the progress of the national football teams. For a long time, our football teams have been in the doldrums.

3. I am proud of this young team's achievement. They have restored the pride of "Harimau Malaya".

4. I hope they will continue to achieve success. I hope too that they will not be spoilt by the riches their success brings and would maintain the discipline and hardworking nature that brought them this far.

As posted by Dr. Mahathir Mohamad at Che Det on January 4, 2011 7:57 AM

1. I spent my annual holiday in India. After three days in Delhi I flew to Mumbai. The population of the city is 20 million spread over seven islands linked by bridges to each other and to the mainland.

2. From my window in the Taj Lands End Hotel I can see a bridge across the sea to the City Centre.

3. The bridge is curved forming a half circle from end to end. The centre part is cable-stayed with two supporting pylons. The rest, both the eastern and the western ends are supported by concrete pillars.

4. The haze is bad but the whole curved bridge can be clearly seen in the evening.

5. I wonder whether the Mumbaians protested about being curved and not straight.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

1. President Barack Obama of the greatest and most powerful nation in the world slipped secretly into Afghanistan in the darkness of the night. Hardly a triumphant entry for a conqueror. The world only got to know it after the event (read here).

2. And why was the great leader there? It is to find ways of getting out of a country which the US had spent a trillion dollars to conquer.

3. After killing a few thousands of America's youths not to mention maybe a hundred thousand Afghanistans to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban and to bring about democracy, the US finds itself accepting a possible Taliban coalition with the Karzai Government. I suspect it is not going to be very democratic.

4. Clearly the war (the mass killings) to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban is futile. Not only has it failed to achieve the objective, it has in fact resulted in more insecurity for America, for Afghanistan and for all America's allies.

5. So far the most powerful countries have lost to the poor, unsophisticated fighters of the very weak in Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. The only place where they have won is in the Caribbean Island of Grenada.

6. Those trillions of dollars spent on research, development and productions of ever more effective murder weapons will prove to be a waste. In the end to claim the rights of the victor you have to be on the ground. And on the ground the people of the defeated countries will use primitive hand guns and home made bombs to kill the victors, within their countries and everywhere else. Like Obama, the victorious leaders will have to slink about in the darkness of the night, frightened by the hatred of those they had terrorized, despite the massive security personnel around them.

7. The victory would be meaningless.

8. When will the great powers learn that their overwhelming military power will avail them of nothing in this modern age.

9. When will they realise that war, the killing of innocent people is futile.

As posted by Dr. Mahathir Mohamad at Che Det on December 24, 2010 1:45 PM

1. The Simon Weisenthal Centre (Jewish) has published a list of people who are classified as anti-Semitic in 2010.

2. This classification is based on the "slurs" uttered by these people against the Jews or Israel in that year.

3. I am listed among the top 10. I suppose what I had said in 2010 are regarded by the Jewish Centre as slurs but I was merely exercising my right to free speech to speak up against what I considered as injustice.

4. I condemned Israel for breaking international laws, carrying out an illegal siege of Gaza, attacking and seizing the Mavi Marmara and the Rachel Corrie in international waters, killing nine Turkish aid workers, and continuing to deprive the suffering people of Gaza of medical supplies, construction material and food.

5. Israel together with the US are the only countries to use depleted uranium in their bombs and shells which have resulted in all kinds of radiation diseases, among the Palestinians, especially the new-born babies.

6. If for any or all these I am considered to be anti-Semitic then so be it. But Jews clearly cannot be condemned for anything because 60 years ago the Nazis of Germany committed atrocities against them.

7. Apparently their sufferings of 60 years ago entitle them to inflicting sufferings on the Palestinians whose land they had stolen. No matter how cruel or unjust they may be no one may criticise them.

8. It is not being Semitic that is wrong. What is wrong and what draws condemnation is the arrogance, the lack of respect for the lives and rights of others, the blatant seizure of other people's land, the arbitrary imprisonment of people, the misinformation spread by the media they control etc - which are the subject of condemnation. Whoever commits them must be condemned. And it is obvious that it is the Israelis who commit them most. Israeli oppression and injustice towards the Palestinians cannot be disputed even by those who back Israel.

9. Yes, there were acts by those deprived of their land by the Zionists, which are no less wrong and worthy of condemnation.

10. But these people have no other means to fight back against the military weapons of their attackers. If they have the tanks, the war planes, the missiles etc they would fight "legitimate" wars. But they don't and there is a sanction on weapons being supplied to them. They have therefore to resort to whatever means they have to retaliate.

11. Admittedly the victims of their attacks include innocent civilians. But when bombs are dropped or missiles fired from afar the victims are also mostly innocent civilians, the old, the sick, the women and the children.

12. Are unexpected deaths and woundings by suicide bombers any different from the deaths and woundings by bombs, missiles, guns, tanks and bull-dozers used by the militarily well-equipped and powerful? I don't think they are.

13. Are the people waiting to be killed by bombs and missiles free from feelings of fear and terror at the prospect of sudden violent deaths and having their bodies painfully torn apart, as are those killed by suicide bombers or primitive rockets.

14. There is no difference in terms of violence between the acts of a suicide bomber and the killings by bombs dropped from the sky or missiles fired from a distance. Both cause fear and terror. Both acts are therefore acts of terror. Both qualify to be called terrorists. State terrorists are no different from irregular terrorists.

15. Historically the Jews may have lived in the land that is Palestine. But historically the original people of America were the misnamed Red Indians, as were the Aborigines and Maoris of Australia and New Zealand. If all lands must be returned to the first people to live there, then return the United States, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand to the indigenous natives. But you won't would you?

16. I am not anti-Semitic bcause I am not against the Arabs and other Semitic people, or for that matter those Jews who reject Zionism.

17. I am simply against injustice, against oppression and unmitigated and illegal violence.

18. If that makes me anti-Semitic then I am proud to be anti-Semitic, even though the term anti-Semitic is wrong.